


Marianne

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Love, M/M, Psychological Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-08
Updated: 2009-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unable to cope with the world around him and unaware of his own humor and charms, Roderich has given up on himself and is close to slipping through the cracks entirely. When happenstance reunites him with a friend he thought long-lost, Roderich gets another chance to find himself—if only he can look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marianne

Thursday. Roderich lies on his back for a while, as he does every Thursday afternoon. It's not until he moves to his desk and turns on the computer monitor that he notices the day on the menu bar: Tuesday. He's not sure if he is two days ahead or five days behind. He isn't sure what there is to be ahead of or behind, so he lets it alone and clicks over to check on the latest available torrents.

Once he has the new downloads going and has watched a few things that finished overnight, he goes to the fridge. It's not empty but the cartons in it are. The cans and bottles on the counter are empty, too.

"Where ya been keeping yourself, Marianne?" the homeless man on the corner calls out as he does every time Roderich walks by, even when he's on the opposite side of the street. There is probably a real Marianne. Roderich thinks she must be the homeless man's lost love. He used to think so, that is; now he tries not to think about it.

He used to answer the homeless man: "Around," he would say, deepening his voice as much as he could in hopes the homeless man would recognize his masculinity. The homeless man just kept calling him Marianne, though, and so Roderich gave up. Now he tries to get from his apartment to the convenience store as quickly as possible, with a minimum of interaction. He shoves his hands into his pockets and keeps his head down as he walks. There don't seem to be many people out today, so he decides to go the extra few blocks and try for the grocery store.

There are a lot more people in the store than there are on the sidewalk but Roderich is here already, so he picks up a shopping basket and starts down the least-crowded aisle. After collecting a few bottles of water and some toaster pastries, he finds himself standing in front of cheeses. Cheeses from all over the world, cheeses from cows and goats and sheep. He wonders what other animals you can make cheese from. If all it requires is the ability to produce milk, why isn't there human cheese?

"Are you finding everything today, sir?"

Roderich looks up at the too-bright voice into a too-bright smile. "Yes," he says rather too loudly himself.

"Well, let me know if I can help you find anything!" the young man says. Even the thick curl protruding from his head seems to be smiling. He's nothing like the boy at the convenience store, Roderich thinks as he edges away. He leaves his half-full basket at the end of the next aisle.

Roderich likes the lazy boy at the convenience store because he doesn't say anything and rarely bothers to look at Roderich at all anymore; his eyes, when he bothers to open them, are only for one of the cats that always seem to be hanging around him.

Unfortunately, though, it's the other one today. The blond-haired, blue-eyed, dazzling-smiled one with a cowlick not unlike Roderich's; that last is, as far as Roderich can tell, the only thing they have in common. Roderich takes a deep, wishful breath as he puts his things on the counter—but as the sunshine boy rings him up, he says it anyhow, like always: "Nice day for a race."

Roderich has tried different responses, including no response at all, but he has learned that the sunshine boy cannot be dissuaded. The best thing to do is to play along with him and get through it quickly. "What race is that," he says without inflection as he counts out the exact change.

The sunshine boy answers like Roderich has truly asked, showing off a full set of toothpaste-advert-white teeth as he beams: "Why, the human race, of course!"

Roderich takes one last look at the teeth. "All right." He drags the plastic bag off the counter by the handles, the fingers of his other hand still hooked into the six pack.

"Hey, Marianne!" the homeless man shouts from across the street.

Around, Roderich thinks but doesn't say. Around, around, around.

There's a box outside his door when he gets back and he can tell from the return address that it holds the Bel Ami DVDs he ordered last week. He doesn't feel like taking them out just yet, so he leaves the package unopened, though he at least brings it inside.

He decides to watch an old favorite instead, one that actually has a plot mixed in with all the sex. This is the one he used two years ago when the classical music blasting through the thin walls from next door got to be too much for him, and he was forced to counterattack with high-decibel pornography. He hadn't noticed that the music had stopped until he heard a knocking on his door. He had pressed the pause button, but hadn't answered the door. "Hey, man," a male voice from the other side had called, "mind if I join you? Whatever you're watching sounds a hell of a lot more fun than what I have going on." When Roderich ventured to open the door, he'd been met with a toothsome grin, glittering eyes and a shock of white hair; lower down, a set of military dog tags rested against a bare, hairless chest. And that was how Roderich met Gilbert Weillschmidt.

They started hanging out after that, watching porn, drinking beer, kind of like friends. Then one time, Gilbert reached over and took Roderich's cock in his hand and Roderich was so startled he didn't do anything. Didn't do anything but let Gilbert jerk him off until he came. Gilbert did it for him the next time as well; the time after, Gilbert grinned and said, "You know, you can help me out, too." It didn't seem like a big deal so Roderich reached over, and that's how mutual masturbation became an occasional part of their hanging out.

Gilbert's unmistakable tread comes up the stairs now. Roderich zips up but doesn't bother with shirt or shoes. "Would you care to—" he says as he leans out of his door, "—oh."

"Hey, man, what's up?" Gilbert turns to the young woman beside him and explains, "This is my neighbor."

"The one who doesn't like the piano," the young woman says. She's dressed smartly in a man's suit, her hair has come free of its tie to tumble past her shoulders; a yellow flower perches behind one ear. "Hello, Roderich. It's you, isn't it?"

Roderich's tongue swells, thickening in his mouth as if it will fill the whole thing.

Gilbert looks between them. "You two know each other?"

His piano-playing friend nods. "We were at the Conservatory together." She turns and looks at Roderich again. "But maybe you don't remember—"

"I remember you, Elizaveta," Roderich says. Now that his tongue is working again, it's his lips that seem to be having the problem; he isn't sure if he has managed a reasonable facsimile of a smile or not, but between them Elizaveta and Gilbert seem to have the smiling situation covered. "Well," Roderich says, "I won't keep you. Sorry to interrupt."

He ducks back inside but doesn't manage to get the door shut before Gilbert says, "You're not interrupting, we're just hanging out. Why don't you hang with us?" When Roderich hesitates, Gilbert says, "Come on, man. You can stroke off any time. Come drink with us."

Roderich feels the fury of his blush, but doesn't say anything. He glances at Elizaveta, who senses the gaze and turns to meet it. Just before Roderich looks away, he sees that Elizaveta is smiling—which doesn't necessarily mean anything, good or bad; it doesn't mean Elizaveta is smiling at him or Elizaveta is laughing at him because, as Roderich recalls, Elizaveta used to smile an awful lot. She probably still does.

"All right, then," Roderich says, because Gilbert has already countered the only excuse that comes to him.

They sit in Gilbert's apartment, drinking and talking. Gilbert and Elizaveta are doing most of the talking, but Roderich doesn't mind sitting there listening to them.

Then Elizaveta turns to him and says, "So what happened to you, Roderich?"

Roderich has been expecting this. He has had over an hour to think of what he'll say and he has his response clearly thought-out and at the ready: "I dropped out." There seemed more to it when the words were in his head; when he hears them aloud, he sighs inwardly and braces for awkwardness, for awkward silence or awkward questioning. But Elizaveta nods and says she figured it was something like that. Roderich isn't sure what to make of the response, but Elizaveta smiles and eases the conversation back to Gilbert, who takes over like it's nothing to talk.

The evening wears on and Gilbert's alcohol supply is exhausted, even though they themselves are not. Gilbert suggests going on a run to get more, but Roderich remembers the six-pack he bought today. As he's opening his own door, Gilbert and Elizaveta appear behind him. "Oh," Roderich says, but doesn't get further because Gilbert leans heavily against him as the door opens fully, and they tumble inside.

Roderich apologizes as he tries hastily to clear space for them. He glances at Elizaveta: she's standing there looking at it, and the immensity of the mess starts to sink into Roderich, weighting his arms, thickening his fingers—it's harder to move them now and he can't hold onto anything; he feels the magazines and clothing and whatnot he'd picked up slip through his hands to spill on the floor once more. He bends down but his damnable fingers won't work, the towel he's reaching for won't stick to them, and gravity reclaims it. He tries again, his face hot with the blood rushed to his head from having to stay bent over, from being like _this_ , and he wants nothing more than to get away, except they're at his place and it's only one room and he has nowhere to go...and then fingers brush his, curling into terrycloth as the towel lets itself be picked up.

Roderich unbends. Towel in hand, Elizaveta smiles. "Why don't you get the beer?" she suggests. "We'll keep straightening up in here."

In the kitchenette, Roderich stays with his head in the fridge until the blood has calmed from the surface of his skin. By the time he gets back, Elizaveta and Gilbert are sitting on the sofa they've uncovered. Roderich folds himself onto the floor. "There's space with us," Elizaveta says, but Roderich says he likes it down here and Elizaveta doesn't insist. Roderich hands each of them a can, which they clink in toast before taking the first sips—and then, just as Roderich has been fearing, nothing happens.

Then it's worse than silence, as conversation so often is. It's bad in a way Roderich forgot to anticipate, because now Elizaveta is holding up the cover of the DVD in the player and saying, "I love their stuff. Have you seen the Personal Trainers series?"

"Seen it?" Gilbert says. "He owns every volume." Gilbert grins unabashedly, and Roderich is afraid he is going to suggest they watch one right now.

To forestall such a disaster, Roderich finds himself blurting, "So you play in the Symphony."

Elizaveta turns to him. "That's right." Silence looms threateningly, but Elizaveta steps into it with ease, dispersing it as she talks about the piece they've started rehearsing for the new season opening, what she loves about Liszt and what she doesn't. She talks about music for a while, and Roderich listens.

Then Elizaveta says, "Do you still play?" She slides off the sofa onto her knees, reaching to hover at the edge of the violin case half-buried beneath a pile of miscellany. "I'm sorry," she says as she brings her hand back to herself. "I just happened across it while we were picking things up. I didn't touch it, though."

"No," Roderich says. "I mean, I don't play anymore." He waits for her to say the same thing everyone does, about what a shame, a _shame_ that is—but Elizaveta only nods.

"What do you do?" she asks conversationally. Just casual, polite conversation, but Roderich realizes there's no way to avoid the shame.

"I sleep, mostly," he confesses. "And go to the convenience store."

"And watch porn," Gilbert chimes in.

Elizaveta nods again without taking her eyes off Roderich. "So are you." She hesitates, curiosity and civility warring in her, coming to a compromise of discretion: "A recluse?"

"Sort of, yes." If there's a word for what he is, Roderich doesn't know it. He means to leave it at that, but finds himself going on, describing the nuances of his situation, telling Elizaveta things like how he pays his bills by pirating porn and anime, how he pirates music but there's no money in that, which brand of toaster pastries he prefers, simply talking to her. It's always been easy to talk to Elizaveta, easy to say things to her. Well, easy to say some things, if impossible to say others.

They've been talking for a while when a stuttered snore reminds them of Gilbert's presence. They turn to see him sprawled on the sofa, one foot draped over the back, the other dangling off the armrest, a hand reaching down to curl even in sleep around the beer can sitting on the floor.

As Roderich slides the can from Gilbert's loose grip, Elizaveta says she should probably be going herself: "I have an early rehearsal tomorrow." Roderich looks up and opens his mouth, then shuts it again wordlessly. "I'll help you bring him back to his place," she offers with a grin.

"No, it's all right." Roderich moves around to the armrest by Gilbert's head and reaches under his shoulders to slide him into a more comfortable position. "I don't mind him crashing here."

"Let me help with this, at least," Elizaveta says, bringing Gilbert's foot over from the back of the sofa and untying his shoelaces.

At the door, she thanks Roderich for his hospitality and bids him good night.

"Good night," Roderich returns. Then as she is turning in the doorway, Roderich says, "I don't dislike the piano." Elizaveta turns back. "I just asked him to keep the music down because it reminded me." He stops. Feels himself breathe. Goes on: "Of you."

"So it's me you don't like." There's sadness in Elizaveta's eyes, though she's still trying to smile. "I see."

 _No_ , Roderich wants to say, but once again his thickened tongue obscures that and half the other words in his mouth, and the only ones that make it out are, "Things lost."

Elizaveta looks at him again. Really looks at him, and Roderich wants to look away so badly that he does—but then he somehow manages to look back. He knows the fragment wasn't enough, but all the other words have been swallowed. Those words, still thick, are now in his throat; he's lucky he can breathe.

"So you don't dislike me?" Elizaveta says.

Roderich shakes his head, then sorts through the double negative and nods. Then he isn't sure that's the right response, either, so he stops and looks at her.

"You like me?" The smile sidles back to her mouth.

Roderich nods again.

"Then I'll come by and say hi the next time I visit Gilbert," she says. "And maybe sometime I could just come visit you."

Roderich looks down and runs his tongue along his lip. He looks up again, right into Elizaveta's eyes for a moment before his gaze slides off-center. "When do you think you might come by?"

"I could probably come next Tuesday."

Roderich nods. "All right," he says. He even smiles.

 

When Elizaveta comes to see Gilbert the next Tuesday, she also knocks on Roderich's door, just like she said she would. She does the same the following Tuesday, and the one after that. Then the next Tuesday, she says maybe she'll come see Roderich on Friday without stopping in at Gilbert's first, and Roderich says all right, and she smiles. She's smiling on Friday when Roderich opens the door, and Roderich smiles, too.

They don't do anything that Friday. They sit in Roderich's room, talking and drinking. It turns out to be fine, and afterwards Roderich doesn't know what he was so nervous about. It's just like hanging out with Gilbert, only without the pornography.

The next Friday is the same, talking and drinking and fine. The Friday after, they get a little hungry and so they walk to the convenience store, where they get snack cakes and three different kinds of potato chips because variety, Roderich says, is the spice of life. The words sound a lot stupider coming out of Roderich's mouth than they did in his head, but Elizaveta laughs anyhow, like Roderich has been clever, and Roderich can't help smiling back. When they check out, the sunshine boy behind the counter says, as always, "Nice day for a race."

"Oh, I know!" Elizaveta grins and chimes in with him: "The human race!"

Roderich shakes his head at them, but he doesn't disagree.

As they're walking back to the apartment, Elizaveta mentions that the Symphony's season is opening next week. Roderich smiles at her to let her know it's all right to talk about classical music. She smiles back and starts talking about it more—and then suddenly she says, "I got a ticket for you, if you want to come."

It's not actually sudden. If a person had been paying attention, he would have known she was going to say this. It's not that Roderich wasn't paying attention, it's that he didn't think—he didn't _want_ to think about it. He didn't even want to contemplate the possibility he'd have to think about it. This method has rarely worked for Roderich in the past, so he doesn't know why he keeps trying it.

When he hears Elizaveta say his name, Roderich realizes all the time that passed in his head while he was thinking just now has also passed outside his head, wordlessly. He doesn't know what to say. Since he's already had to think about it, he tries thinking more.

He does more than think; he imagines: all the people who will be there. Not that he'll know any of them, of course. In his imagination, they are faceless. How they can make so much noise without mouths, Roderich doesn't know—but they do. A cacophony. Not even the music can drown it out. It's worse than any grocery store Roderich has ever been to, and twice as bright even when the house lights dim, because there's a spotlight on him, even though he's only sitting in the audience. Everyone can see him and how he doesn't fit in, how his face doesn’t match theirs, how he doesn't belong.

Again Elizaveta says his name. Roderich shakes his head. He can't. He can't even tell Elizaveta that he can't.

"I'm sorry," she says. Her hand hovers but doesn't touch, then falls back to her side. "I shouldn't have—look, it's all right. I can give the ticket to Gilbert or something."

Roderich doesn't say anything, and Elizaveta doesn't say anything else.

When they get to the apartment, Roderich fumbles for his key. He has to concentrate to get it into the lock, and then to turn it the right way once it's in. Finally, he gets the tumbler to click and the knob to twist.

"Hey, Roderich." Elizaveta's voice is soft. When Roderich glances at him, she says again, "I'm sorry." She looks like she wants to say more, but she doesn't. She looks at Roderich, and the regret looks so terrible that Roderich has to look away. Roderich focuses on his hand on the doorknob as he turns it. "I'll just—" she starts. "I'm going to see if Gilbert's still in."

Roderich doesn't look and he doesn't say anything, not until he has the door open and one foot inside it. "You're not coming in?"

Half-way to Gilbert's door, Elizaveta turns back to him. "Do you want me to?" The regret is still there, but there's something pushing in from the edges. Something so familiar, but elusive. Then Roderich remembers it: hope.

As Roderich looks down this time, the plastic bag from the convenience store catches his eye. "I don't like sour cream and onion," he says.

With a sinking feeling, he realizes too late that she might take the sour cream and onion chips to Gilbert's.

She comes closer, close enough to touch. She doesn't touch Roderich, but she does say, "Then I guess I should come in." She smiles when Roderich looks at her, even though Roderich can't smile back, not yet; Elizaveta smiles enough for both of them.

 

Elizaveta doesn't come on regular days to see Gilbert anymore, but when she does, Roderich sometimes goes over, too. On Fridays, Friday after Friday, Elizaveta comes to see Roderich, and they hang out, just the two of them.

One evening as they're walking to the convenience store, they find themselves face-to-face with the homeless man, who has popped up from around a corner. The homeless man looks at Roderich, and Roderich can't help looking back.

"This your new love, Marianne?" The homeless man jerks a thumb at Elizaveta.

Roderich doesn't know what to say.

The homeless man turns to Elizaveta. "You better not hurt her," he tells Elizaveta. "You better not make her cry."

Roderich doesn't know what to say. But Elizaveta does.

"I won't," she says seriously, meeting the homeless man's eyes. "I promise."

The homeless man holds the stare a moment longer. Then he nods, satisfied with whatever he has seen in Elizaveta. He glances over at Roderich again, not quite meeting his eyes this time. "Take care of yourself, Marianne."

"I will," Roderich says, even though the homeless man has already turned his back and started away.

After a moment, Roderich and Elizaveta start walking again. Roderich's hand accidentally brushes the back of Elizaveta's as they go. Then her hand touches his, and stays.

Their hands stay touching even when they pass someone on the street. "Nice night for it," the guy nods casually as they go by.

They don't say anything. But yes. It is.

**Author's Note:**

> While Elizaveta is not musical in Hetalia canon, I used cultural influences (specifically the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt) to bend that here.


End file.
